1956 Cessna 620: Ginormous (Quad) 310?

The one and only prototype Cessna 620 executive aircraft concept

 As far as I’m concerned, the Cessna 620 was doomed from the start… you needn’t go any farther than the name: Cessna six-twenty? It just doesn’t roll off the tongue like it should. It’s kinda like the Infinity QX56 I saw the other day. QX fifty-six? What the heck?

 Actually, the Cessna 620 is a pretty interesting airplane, and had it not been for the fact that airlines in the late 50’s were rapidly switching to jet aircraft, the 620 might have had a real opportunity to make it in the biz-prop marketplace. As it turned out tho, when the airlines started dumping their twin-engine, 40 seat Convair 240/340 and Martin 4-0-4 aircraft, it just didn’t make much sense for a corporate operator to spend more money on a new airplane that could only carry 10 bodies. That economic reality seems to be the pivot point for pulling the plug on the 620 in 1957 after only one prototype was built and flown. It’s good to note tho that it appears the airplane performed well and lived up to Cessna’s design goals.

 With power coming from 4 Continental engines producing 350 hp each, the aircraft was expected to be able to cruise at about 250 mph. However, the care and feeding of those 4 engines also seems to be a pretty big disadvantage. Especially since more powerful and more reliable turboprop engines were just a handful of years away from reaching the marketplace on twin-engine airplanes like the Beech King Air.

 But still, like many other research projects from the past, the Cessna 620 is a really interesting part of aviation history. And while there doesn’t seem to be any real connection between the 620 and the 310 (except the look of those snazzy tip tanks) I do think that the big 4-engine beast might have been useful as a mower for airports with large grass runways… umm, excuse me, can we get a little more ground clearance here please!

Cessna 620: 4 engines and 10 seats

Caption Contest #39 - Ends Wednesday 10.20.10 At 9PM EDT

 The return of the Caption Contest seems to be going really well so far, so here’s another chance to give it a go. I’m expecting some good captions to come in for this unusual pic. It’s probably gonna take a really good one to beat out captioner 'Race 5' since he’s won the last two in a row! But don’t let the competition scare you… just keep the winner’s prize of a bacon sandwich at OSH11 in mind and you’ll be fine : )

 So, you’ve got til Wednesday evening at 9pm EDT to submit your clever/funny/cool captions to go with this image. Then, I’ll pick the best 5 and put ’em in a poll for everyone to vote on all day Thursday and Friday.

 The Rules:

1) Max of 3 submissions per person

2) Submissions go in the 'comments' area 

3) Game ends Wednesday at 9pm EDT 

4) Keep it clean!

 Then, anyone who wants to can cast their vote starting Thursday morning and running thru til 9pm EDT Friday. The winner will be posted Saturday morning 10-23-10. AvGeeks on your mark, get set… go!

AirPigz Podcast #13: Racer Marilyn Dash Talks Reno 2010 - Part 1

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Marilyn Dash races her Pitts Special in the Biplane Class at the Reno Air Races

For more info on Marilyn Dash and the Reno Air Races, check out:
RubyRedRacing.com and PylonPlace.Blogspot.com

 Marilyn Dash has been racing in the Biplane Class at Reno for many years now. She's also extremely well connected to the culture of people and airplanes at Reno which makes her a great person to talk to about all things Reno. Our chat was long enough to break into two parts, with part 1 here covering her personal experience racing the Pitts Special again this year, along with some talk about the racers in the Formula One Class.

 Marilyn is both sharp and fun... this is a great interview for anyone with an interest in air racing. Enjoy!

 (part 2, covering Sport & Super Sport, T-6, Jet, and Unlimited Classes will be up soon)

Marilyn Dash and her Pitts Special

Bill Falck's 1970's 'Rivets' Formula One racer discussed in the interview

Reno 2010: AR-6 'Endeavor' Formula One racer discussed in the interview

Caption Contest #38 Winner - Yoda Speaks

 The captioner known as Race 5 has done it again... two in a row now! They've earned another bacon sandwich at OSH11 with this short, sweet, and to the point caption about Yoda's response to this X-wing mishap. And, to answer seerjfly's question about where do I find these pictures... it just takes tenacious, relentless web searching and a slightly twisted mind to generate the right search terms. There's a lot of crazy stuff out there!

 I wish I knew who created this image as they've done a fabulous job. I'm getting fairly good with photoshop myself these days, so hopefully I'll be able to start up my own collection of bizarre aviation images before long. Anyway, thanx again to everyone who submitted captions, and to all who voted. Watch for more of this harmless avgeekery as we try to snag a wire next Monday morning : )

Video: Fabulous Recap Of The 26-Hour 'Solar Impulse' Flight

 A great video recap of the historic 26-hour flight of the Solar Impulse on July 8, 2010. You can find lots more videos of this fascinating electric aircraft at the Solar impulse youtube channel, and additional info on the project at their official website: solarimpulse.com.

Video: Sometimes You Just Wanna Know... How Craters Are Formed!

CoolPix And 'Name The Plane' Northrop P-61 Black Widow

(click pic for hi-res)

 Earlier today I whipped up an aircraft ID test as part of my on again off again game I call 'Name The Plane'. I thought I was being really clever by cropping down the rear windows in the Northrop P-61 Black Widow so it actually looked like cockpit windows. I figured it would be good for at least two days of avgeek research. I was wrong. About an hour after I put it up, twitter follower @PilotConway had it nailed! Of course it didn't hurt him that he had recently built a 1/48 scale model of the P-61 and those back windows had been pesky during the build. He turned that little bit of knowledge into a bacon sandwich at OSH11 : )

 So here's the whole picture of the P-61 as a nice big CoolPix.

 I'll have more details another day about this rather large and somewhat slow night fighter. As with everything built for the WWII effort, there's a lot of interesting info to be learned about the design process and then the actual military flight operations... but for now I hope you enjoy checking out a really big picture of another one of Jack Northrop's unique aircraft.

'Name The Plane' - ID Make And Model For Free Bacon! (10.12.10)

 Some of you know that I used to run a cool game via twitter called 'Name The Plane'. If you don't know about it, it was pretty simple... I'd post a small cropped part of an airplane and avgeeks would try to name it correctly by responding with an @AirPigz reply. It was live, interactive and loads of fun. That game led to a complete stand-alone website project that still isn't finished (my bad - not enuf time and energy), but it'll get done one of these days, and it's gonna be glossy cool when it is!

 I tried running the game thru AirPigz.com, but it was clunky. So, today I'm kinda trying it again on AirPigz, but I'm making it really hard so it slows the whole process down - how's that for progress? This time around it's a little more like this P-38 test from a little while back that was eventually correctly ID'd.

 Here's the deal. Leave a comment with the MAKE and MODEL of this airplane, and the first person to get it right will win a bacon sandwich at Oshkosh 2011. Keep in mind that throwing lots of rapid fire answer possibilities will be looked down on. The idea is that you really have to think here. I'll add that this isn't an easy one to figure out. Or at least I don't think it is. Someone may surprise me with a quick answer, but I really expect this to go on for quite a while. So put your thinking cap on, loosen up your google search fingers and have some aircraft ID fun : )

Caption Contest #38 - Ends Wednesday 10.13.10 At 9PM EDT

 With Sunday 10.10.10 being such a great day at the Mojave Air and Space Port with the first free flight of VSS Enterprise, I figured Caption Contest #38 should pick up on a ‘space’ theme. So here ya go!

 You've got til Wednesday evening 10.13.10 at 9pm EDT to submit your clever/funny/cool captions to go with this image. Then, I’ll pick the best 5 and put ’em in a poll for everyone to vote on all day Thursday and Friday. And, as is now the practice, the most popular captioner will win a bacon sandwich at Oshkosh 2011 : )

 The Rules:

1) Max of 3 submissions per person

2) Submissions go in the 'comments' area 

3) Game ends Wednesday at 9pm EDT 

4) Keep it clean!

 Then, anyone who wants can cast their vote starting Thursday morning and running thru til 9pm EDT Friday. The winner will be posted Saturday morning 10-16-10. I say it’s time to set sail for avgeek fun!

Video: VSS Enterprise First Flight - Phenomenally Nice Flying Machine!

 This video shows part of the amazing first ever free flight of SpaceShipTwo (VSS Enterprise) at the Mojave Air and Space Port on Sunday 10.10.10. In addition to seeing the spectacular moment of release from the mothership VSS Eve, you can sum up the status of this commercial space tourism venture thus far by watching the stunningly stable 'greaser' landing! As Burt Rutan stated afterward: "Pete was able to just kiss the ground with it... when you do that, and you've never flown the airplane before, you've never landed it, what that tells you is you've got a phenomenally nice flying machine."

 To Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites, what more can you say than... BRAVO!